The Hills Are Shadows by Joan Givner

Author:Joan Givner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: JUV037000, JUV014000
Publisher: Thistledown Press
Published: 2014-03-31T00:00:00+00:00

Freeing Zumi

SHE’D NOTICED A KEY RING ON the desk when she lit the candle. Now she saw that each key had a tab with a label: HOUSE. COTTAGE. CELLAR. She pried the cellar key off the ring, put it in her pocket, and left the room.

By this time it was broad daylight and anyone who was awake could see her as she crossed the courtyard to the barn. She had to risk going down the stairs; there was no other way. She went down hurriedly, looking at the house as she did so. All was quiet, and even the merry men outside the music room were sleeping, leaning against the wall and against each other. For a moment, she was tempted to detour and free Wen and Una, but the thought of Zumi imprisoned in a dark cellar made her hurry to the barn.

Clutching the key in her pocket, she moved to the bushes on the periphery of the courtyard. Keeping well hidden by the shrubs, she worked her way around and went into the barn. Its interior was quite dark, and she peered around nervously, fearing that one or more of the dancers might be sleeping there, ready to wake up at the slightest sound. She saw nobody in the shadowy corners, or on the bales of hay. She moved about looking for the ring in the floor above the cellar, but still alert for the sound of danger.

Eventually she spotted a black metal ring, partly hidden under some loose straw near the far wall. Pushing away the straw, she saw that the ring and a keyhole were both set in a square, cut in the wooden floor of the barn. She lifted the ring and pulled up the heavy trap door. It wasn’t locked, after all. A long flight of wooden steps descended into the depths below, the bottom of the flight concealed in darkness. There was no sound from down there, and she wondered if the old man had tricked her again. Perhaps Zumi was a prisoner in a dungeon after all, or in a different cellar. She knelt down and leaned over the edge of the opening.

“Zumi!,” she called out in a low voice.

There was no reply. She called three times, each time a little louder. The third time, her voice was quavering as feelings of anger and frustration swept over her. He wasn’t there. She sat down on the wooden floor of the barn, her head in her hands, overwhelmed by hopelessness. Minutes passed. She thought of how often when she’d felt discouraged in the face of some difficult task, her mother would say, “Tenn, you need to take a deep breath . . . ”

She took a deep breath.

“Tenn!,” a voice said.

It came from somewhere below.

She turned, and there at the top of the steps was Zumi, his face covered in bruises and scratches from the fight.

“Zumi!” she said. She wanted to reach down and stroke his battered face.

“I heard my name. I wake and think I still dream.

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